By its own high standards, Saturday’s Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes is a lacklustre renewal. But it shouldn’t be used as a stick to beat the Irish Champions Festival (ICF). The big race turnout underlines how bringing horses to water is one thing and making them drink is another.
It is the 12th year of Irish flat racing’s showpiece event, with the sports top autumn attractions squeezed into a single €5 million blowout over two days. Once again, six of the 17 races spread between Leopardstown and the Curragh are top-level Group One events, the best of the best.
It sees the ICF firmly in place as the first of a series of major global racing events that will proceed to Paris in four weeks for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. That is followed shortly after by British Champions Day at Ascot, before the Breeders Cup at Del Mar.
With the Melbourne Cup and the Japan Cup in November, as well as the Hong Kong Carnival in December, the global flat racing village has never been smaller. Those who relish the best of the best in action have never had it so good.
But it does mean a surfeit of opportunity for a necessarily limited pool of elite talent. The upshot of that has dominated much of the build-up to this weekend.
Ombudsman, currently the joint-top rated thoroughbred in the world, not only skips the Champions Festival but the Arc too. Instead, the Godolphin team plan to keep him for British Champions Day, the Breeders Cup and finally a potential trip to Tokyo.
It has robbed the ICF of a headline clash between Godolphin’s best – Ombudsman and Coolmore’s top-notcher, Delacroix. They have clashed twice this season and the score sits at 1-1. Leopardstown looked to be an obvious rubber-match for superiority, until it wasn’t.
The usual terms and conditions apply to comment on such calls. Owners are entitled to do whatever they want with their own property. It’s not like National Hunt racing’s giants don’t slalom around the programme book too when it suits, and without the accompanying commercial stud pressures.
There was even an entertaining twist as John Gosden’s explanation for the change of plan came with a swipe at his Irish rivals.
John Gosden’s back-and-forth with Aidan O’Brien is a break from the norm. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA Wire
Gosden is always careful in his use of language, so for him to say that Ombudsman wouldn’t appreciate running against multiple entries from one stable on a track with a short straight was no slip-up.
Within hours, Aidan O’Brien suggested that Gosden “whinges a little bit”. It was a rare glimpse of the competitor behind the usually bland front. It all made a refreshing change from the anodyne public exchanges between those for whom success and failure can be judged by a short head.
Nevertheless, the back-and-forth between Gosden and O’Brien disguised what was ultimately a lily-livered call by Godolphin.
Ombudsman is a mature four-year-old colt who has run just eight times in his career. Judged by his Juddmonte International victory in York, he is clearly in the form of his life. Leopardstown was Gosden’s call immediately afterwards. A four-week gap between races is usually ideal. Everyone is entitled to change their mind, and ground conditions have turned soft. But the original rationale behind the change of plan is hard to swallow.
To conjure up a scenario where a horse might be blackguarded by multiple entries from one stable isn’t difficult. The reality of how races are dictated by the blight of pacemakers means only the naïve believe everything is always as it seems. But it would be a more credible dig if Ombudsman hadn’t had his own pacemaker in York.
The short-straight argument is risible. Leopardstown’s straight is over two furlongs. The Del Mar stretch can almost be taken in a single gulp of air. Each horse is different but the contrast to how ambitiously Gosden campaigned the three-year-old Golden Horn a decade ago is striking.
Ultimately, Ombudsman skipping Saturday, even before the likelihood of soft ground, is down to a lack of Godolphin pluck.
It isn’t the first time this season such a charge can be made. Sovereignty is the outstanding dirt three-year-old in the US this season. He is a champion, but skipping the Preakness meant missing out on a shot at a Triple Crown that all evidence suggests was his for the taking.
Ombudsman’s absence from the ICF is also a blow to the European pattern. There is a logic to the series of top races that writes itself for a top-notch 10-furlong performer such as Godolphin’s star. It’s designed to encourage competition, if you want to compete.
That the Champions Festival lacks its expected headline attraction is hardly a unique occurrence. It is bogus, though, to use Ombudsman’s absence as a basis for knocking the ICF. It remains a prospect to savour.
It’s true the event hasn’t lived up to expectations in developing domestic public interest in flat racing. But it is firmly on the international radar. It sets up top-class opportunities at a perfect time of year. It is there to be used as a showpiece. But ultimately, no one can be forced to use it.
Something for the Weekend
The Irish Champions Festival focus means Doncaster’s St Leger is in a secondary role, even with the dual-Derby hero Lambourn (3.40) lining up. He is joined by other Ballydoyle hopes in Scandinavia and Stay True. Paddy Twomey and Billy Lee will hope to open their classic accounts with Carmers.
The prospect of ease in the ground may not be ideal for Carmers or Scandinavia but Lambourn is proven on it and can supply O’Brien with a ninth success in the world’s oldest classic.
Leopardstown’s Petingo Handicap will be down O’Brien’s list of weekend priorities, although Light as Air (6.05) should also be fine on soft going and is lurking dangerously at the bottom of the weights. O’Brien had a one-two in the race a year ago.